Coronavirus

Bad news about the Pfizer vaccine. I assume that you have already read about the extreme freezing requirements and the two-shot delivery. Those are logistical challenges that can be overcome. But Pfizer is saying that they are only certain that the vaccine protects for 30 days. It might work for longer than 30 days, but they don't have data to support that yet.

Hypothetical scenario:

Let's say that you get your first vaccination on January 1st. You would need to get the second dose on January 22nd, and it would actually reach full efficacy by January 29th. Then you have a 90% chance of being immune to COVID-19 until at least March 2nd. Maybe longer, who knows, but at least March 2nd. So what does that effectively change from right now? Not much. I could get excited if this vaccine worked for a year, or maybe even if it was just good for six months. But maybe just one month of immunity means a possible scenario of only being immune every other month. If not for the distribution challenges, we could try to get everybody that shot for the same month and stop the spread of the virus completely. But that's a fantasy. There's no realistic chance of getting even a majority of the people on this planet to get vaccinated at the same time.

Here's the Pfizer press release:

www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-...ne-candidate-against

That's not what I'm reading. "This means that protection is achieved 28 days after the initiation of the vaccination, which consists of a 2-dose schedule." There's no statement in there about the vaccine only being effective for 30 days, post-dosing. That's logical since it would be a ludicrous statement to make if you're trying to announce the successful creation of a vaccine, which are generally considered to be lifelong buffers, since they prime the immune system to resist the encroaching organism (i.e. they don't "cure" anything.) It's wise to get boosters for certain vaccines when venturing into areas where their targeted diseases are prevalent (in other words, priming the system again, prior to expected exposure) but there's no vaccine ever created that was expected to last 30 days.

Yes, they don't have data to support its duration because they just emerged from a study to see if it was effective at all. Their study indicates 90% efficacy which one assumes would persist like any other vaccine used to prepare the immune system for resistance. At this point, it's a question of whether you'd like to try this since it seems to have worked for a month or wait 5 years to see if it works OK for everyone else willing to try it. I'm all for the former, at the moment, since there's clearly no way most Americans can be trusted to do something sensible (like, say, deprive the virus of hosts as much as possible for a few weeks.)

The readouts on the vaccines will take a long time. Logically, they have to, right? You don't know if your vaccine keeps you safe until a long time goes by. You could argue they only have ~30 days~ of efficacy data now, so early in the trial, but that doesn't mean it's only 30 days effective.

Most maBs can be stored in -20 freezers, so I hope they can work on the process development side of things and get this one sorted too. The news so far looks good.

The bigger issue is compliance. Folks do not like getting shots and folks do not like getting a second shot three weeks later.

I misread this sentence: "Pfizer and BioNTech are continuing to accumulate safety data and currently estimate that a median of two months of safety data following the second (and final) dose of the vaccine candidate – the amount of safety data specified by the FDA in its guidance for potential Emergency Use Authorization – will be available by the third week of November. " But I'm not the only one with concerns about duration. As Dr. Karen Tashima, director of clinical trials in the Immunology Center at the Miriam Hospital in Rhode Island, told the Boston Globe, the preliminary data from Pfizer does not make it clear whether people will need to be vaccinated twice or six times a year.

www.bostonglobe.com/2020/11/09/metro/is-...l-distancing-months/

It makes sense that Pfizer doesn't have any long-term data yet, because they only started testing in July. Normally, a vaccine wouldn't get FDA approval unless data showed that it had lasting efficacy, but that isn't a priority right now. But if immunity only lasts months and deep-freeze distribution remains a challenge, I don't see a meaningful impact that will get us all back to normal.

I haven't been in this thread for ages in order to maintain my sanity, but I found out today my dad is likely positive. He's pretty good about wearing a mask out of the house, but he is a pastor and so he interacts with some people who don't mask so much. I know he'll probably be okay but as many of you know, this whole thing can hit really close to home.

Please take care of yourselves friends, especially those of you in the US.

Here in the Philippines the numbers seem to be stabilizing. The curve has been effectively flattened if our numbers are anything to go on, and those numbers have drifted down over the last month or so.

FYI — from the organizer of the monthly game night:

We lacked critical mass to meet tonight. Stay safe out there everyone!

The Moderna vaccine news is really, really good. The trial might finish in ten days because we have managed the virus so poorly, so brightsiding THAT horrible situation. Timeframes look like dosing possible by end of year for high-risk folks and April for more general population. I'm really heartened by this.

I need this because the numbers at the end of this month are going to be absolutely harrowing. 2,000 deaths per day in the US. It's already in the numbers, we're just waiting to see it happen.

We had to tell my sister in law that she couldn't come for thanksgiving. I wasn't super looking forward to it anyway, but it was just kind of like "are you really going to make us tell you no?" The percentage of people who are almost certainly going to have a normal family thanksgiving among people they trust (therefore couldn't have the virus) is going to be pretty incredible.

The vaccine news was great. Makes it more imperative not to get the sucker's payoff and get covid carelessly in the next 6 months. The news doesn't look as great for rural communities because of aforementioned high handling/freezing requirements for both vaccines.

The Moderna vaccine has 6mo stability at -20°. And doesn't need reconstituting at point-of-care. That's great news for rural communities. I also hope Phizer can get their PD team working on a more stable formulation. Just great readouts for these, I am really excited. I get a little fucked up feeling when I read comments under blog posts about this from folks saying COVID-19 isn't real, I mean, holy shit, but the facts will bear us out.

Gary, others troubled by Thanksgiving family stuff: Thanksgiving, as a holiday on the calendar is the fourth Thursday of November. That's all well and good. But holidays exist because people celebrate important things. An important thing is coming up. We're going to get through this terrible fucking disease. Looks like maybe July/August timeframe for a a measured approach to normalcy. Might spill into fall or even winter 2021 if we can't get logistics right on distribution, but it's coming.

I want you to have a big celebration for that. You want a turkey dinner? Have a turkey dinner. A clambake? Pizza? Whatever. Make it your own. Do whatever your family does best. Chimichangas and pad thai--whatever makes you and yours happy. Mark that day and plan that party. It's going to happen and it's going to be deeply meaningful.

Just came back to edit myself! Thanks!

In a reasonable society, all Thanksgiving celebrations this year would be limited to the immediate household. And only people with specific medical issues would not want to take a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it's available. We don't live in a reasonable society, so Thanksgiving will be a super-spreader event like we haven't seen before. College kids will bring the virus home from campus, and other folks will travel from highly-infected areas, bringing the virus along like a hitchhiker. Poll numbers in September indicated that 40% of Americans won't take a COVID-19 vaccine even if it is free. So if we have a vaccine with 95% efficacy and 60% eventually get it, we end up with 57% of our society immune. Also, that immunity may have a limited duration. Hopefully it will last at least a year, because an annual vaccination is certainly feasible. And maybe more people will become receptive to a vaccine, especially after what will likely be a rough winter with the virus running rampant.

So we just let my wife's family know that we would not be gathering for Thanksgiving - My wife is having a really hard time with it, and I'm feeling all the guilt for being the one to say that we would not be cramming into her mom's little place with her two brothers and all their kids - Both of them are currently sending their kids to daycare, and are working with the public -
Mother in law is the activities director at a local adult living community and functions as a chauffer with the big staff bus right now, taking residents to appointments - Just last week she was getting on an her 80 year old tenant who informed her that she needed to go get a test per her doctor, AFTER hitting up Goodwill and the local grocery store. The next day MIL gets a call from work that the test came back positive and now she is on a 7 day stay at home. This little gal had gone to her church the day before (where they don;t wear masks.)

It's hard here in Oregon, as we are so rural and have had relatively little spread - and all the rural towns are Trump , guns , and logging towns - People just want to wish this crap away.

Heck I want to wish this crap away, but you know, reality. This sucks. I want to see my Dad, but he's just come out of 8 weeks of radiation treatment for early prostate cancer (Numbers came back really good!) but I couldn't live with myself if we got him sick.

Checked in with my mom last night. My dad is still fighting this thing, he's tired and still running a fever, but his breathing is clear. Looks like he'll be fine, but it's no fun. Of course now my mom is beginning to show some symptoms, so that's a thing now.

We are going to be gathering with some other expats for Thanksgiving here, but the situation is obviously very different here. Even then it's going to be scaled back quite a bit.

My employer is talking about giving out COVID vaccines sometime next month to all adults. It's really nice to hear that. I'm not sure I am going to be getting one since I am travelling back to the US until mid January and I don't think they are going to let me get it at HQ.

Going back to the US I'm not worried at all about the flight out of China, it's the transfer at LA that is the danger zone. We are going to hunker down at our house and test after four days. If that turns out negative we'll visit the in-laws. Since it is a month and a half of mandatory leave I'm planning on building a boardgame table to occupy my time.